


Don't Fear the Reaper

by WishUponADragon



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-26 00:46:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10775961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WishUponADragon/pseuds/WishUponADragon
Summary: Just before death, the Grim Reaper appears. With all the times Murphy has almost died, is it any wonder that they are something close to friends?





	Don't Fear the Reaper

The woman was back. She’d come five times today. John shifted around in his bed and coughed so hard his lungs rattled. His dad had said the medicine would help, but he hadn’t gotten any better. 

The woman dressed in black leaned over him. “Are your parents not here?” she asked. John shook his head slightly. “You know, you don’t have to live with the pain.” 

John looked at her through bloodshot eyes. “Are you a doctor?” 

She smiled sadly and shook her head. “No, my dear.” 

John found himself too tired to continue talking to her and closed his eyes. He dimly felt a heavy hand on his forehead. Then it was gone and there was a shuffling of paper. John blinked his eyes open with difficulty to see the woman holding a book. A book. Rare thing to see on the Ark. He briefly wondered where she’d gotten it.

“Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife...” The woman’s calming voice was the only thing Murphy could understand as sleep sunk its claws into him at last.  
++++++++++++++++++++

Shachath shivered. How she wished the humans wouldn’t toss their own into the vastness of space. It was awfully cold out here. She collected the man’s soul as quickly as she could and moved inside the Ark. It was not warm in the Ark by any means, but it was better than outside. 

The usual suspects were gathered around the airlock. She briefly nodded to the three she knew best, Jaha, Kane, and Griffin. Naturally they didn’t see her. They never could. That would change someday, she knew.

A sniffle caught her attention. The boy she had visited yesterday was hovering just almost out of sight of the airlock, wrapped up in a blanket twice his size. Shachath paused beside him to wipe away a tear before going on her way with a rustle of feathers. 

“Ours is not to reason why,” she murmured to no one.  
+++++++++++++++++++++

Murphy gripped the edge of his seat until his knuckles were white. He knew this wouldn’t help if the dropship splintered apart like it threatened to or if the landing gear didn’t properly engage, but it made him feel a bit more in control.

The dropship shuddered, rougher than it had last time. They had to be at least halfway through the atmosphere. Clarke was shouting something, the idiots who’d gotten out of their seats were already dead, and a woman dressed in black was standing in the middle of the dropship. No, wait, what? Murphy blinked and she was gone. A rumble shook the dropship as part of the landing gear engaged, moments before the dropship struck the ground. 

When the screaming stopped Murphy opened his eyes. They were on Earth. Alive.  
+++++++++++++++++++++

She’d seen all of them before. Whether they’d seen her was another story. They certainly didn’t see her now, with the exception of the teenager flailing at the end of a rope. The others screamed themselves hoarse for his death, but Shachath paused. This boy had not killed the young Jaha as the children cried that he had. No, that was-

Ah, there she was. Confessing. The young Griffin, had there ever been a death without a Griffin present, cut down the boy. There was nothing left for her to do here, but Shachath stayed anyways. They would need her soon, of this she was sure. 

And there it was. The boy screamed for justice. Justice might as well be a summoning spell for her. She was always needed when it was spoken. 

The little Griffin and her friends drug the young girl into the woods away from him. Murphy. That was his name. He gathered a mob of fellow seekers of justice and they gave chase. 

Their paths collided at the edge of a cliff. Shachath stayed in full view of them all, not one paid her any mind. Not the young Griffin with the knife at her throat, not Murphy with Blake’s threats. Not the youngest. None intended to kill any other tonight. 

And then she was gone, over the edge. Shachath spread her dark wings and followed. The little one would not have time to be afraid of her decision. 

Shachath shook the water from her wings as she watched the others. Murphy was to remain outside of camp. She watched him walk in the opposite direction of the others. 

“Ours is not to reason why,” she murmured as she followed him.  
++++++++++++++++++++++

Another rabbit bounded away from Murphy’s knife, just a hair too slow. Again. Hunger shook him and he fell heavily to the forest floor. A branch somewhere behind him snapped and he turned quickly to look. 

The woman again. He’d been seeing her more lately. Murphy shook his head. Now was not a good time to start hallucinating. He had to get food. And shelter, and- and-

And he was staring up at the forest canopy. The sun had not been there a moment ago. The woman hadn’t left. She knelt beside him, a caring expression across her face. “You don’t have to live with the pain,” she said. Almost offered.

“Life is pain,” he whispered in reply. Talking to his hallucinations. Can’t get much crazier. Murphy pushed himself up. She was gone. He supposed she’d never been there to start with.   
+++++++++++++++++++++++

He could definitely see her now. His eyes examined her like she was the most interesting thing he’d seen in his life. She supposed that she was a fairer sight than his own blood. There was quite a lot of it. 

She sat cross legged, mirroring him. “You don’t have-”

“To live with the pain. Yeah, you told me.” His voice was rough, raw from screams. His hands were tied above his head. She didn’t try to count the cuts.

Neither of them spoke for a while, both simply staring. Murphy was the one to break the silence. “Angel of death.”

“Pardon?” Shachath tilted her head in confusion.

Murphy did his best to nod in her direction. “You. You’re the angel of death.”

Shachath smiled gently. “Yes, I suppose that is how you might describe me.”

“So I’m dying.” Goodness, this one was blunt. 

“You seem to always be dying, little one. I can help you.” 

He physically jerked away from her, as much as the restraints would allow. “I don’t want your help.”

“I know.” They were both quiet again. Footfalls outside alerted them to the presence of a Grounder.

Murphy’s eyes widen with panic before flicking back towards her. “Don’t go.”

Shachath didn’t bother hiding her confusion. “You don’t want my help, yet you don’t want me to leave?”

“I-I know,” he stammered. “Just- just please stay?”

She stayed where he could see her with a flutter. “Very well, little one. I’ll be here. If you do wish for my kind of help, call my name. It is Shachath.”   
+++++++++++++++++++++++

He couldn’t see her until Bellamy cocked the gun. He knew she was there, she’d followed him back like the sickness in his veins. He could hear Clarke yelling at Bellamy and could feel a cool rag on his face, but all he could see was her, her wings, her dress, her motherly smile, and her hands reaching for him.

He threw up. There was blood. Of course, there was always blood. This seemed different somehow. Clarke was yelling something. She was always yelling something. Murphy fought for consciousness. Shachath would have to wait a while longer for him. 

She didn’t leave, of course, he was still dying. She took several others while he watched. He’d gotten them sick, but she never said anything to him about it. He watched the others’ eyes. When they widened in fear he knew they were next to go. 

She didn’t leave the dropship until dusk the next day. No one else would die of natural causes for a time.   
+++++++++++++++++++++++

She hadn’t expected to return to the dropship. The sickness was almost gone from there. But it was not sickness that brought her back.

Murphy held a bag over the mouth of a boy. She recognized him. Shachath took him away and Murphy moved on to the next. She took him as well. Murphy looked around, though whether he was looking for her or witnesses she didn’t know. He couldn’t see her, this much she knew.

She placed a cold hand on his arm and he jumped. He looked right at her, no, right through her. A girl shifted in a hammock beside him.

“Murphy?” 

Murphy glared at her. “Go back to sleep, Reyes.” 

She sat up and stared at him, unaware of Shachath behind him. Murphy threw the bag to the ground and walked away from the dead boys. Shachath left without disturbing anyone else.  
+++++++++++++++++++++++

The angel wasn’t visible but Murphy could feel her at his back when Raven aimed the gun at his chest. He put his hands out in front of him placatingly and talked slowly, trying to make her see sense. 

The stab of betrayal hurt more than he expected it to. Of course Raven would weigh her murderous boyfriend’s life over his. In her mind they weren’t any different. He wondered if Shachath thought the same. That thought hurt too.

Clarke talked Raven down and he could no longer feel her. He briefly wished she’d come back. She had a way of making him feel calm. He looked around at the small group gathered in the dropship and wondered how many of them could feel her too.  
+++++++++++++++++++++++

He’d grown to trust, and she found herself hating how quickly that had been shocked out of him. He didn’t seem to see her, though whether that was because the girl with the knife didn’t intend to kill him or because he couldn’t look away from her, Shachath couldn’t tell. 

She did know that if his eyes had opened after she’d knocked him out and robbed the group that he would see her. Those who found themselves unconscious in the dead lands did not usually wake. 

The girl and her brother left. Shachath stayed. Murphy’s travelling companions stayed. To her surprise, Murphy woke up. She left with a smile on her lips. She’d underestimated this human. She got the feeling that she was not the only one.  
+++++++++++++++++++++++

Murphy froze when the first mine went off, sending pieces of a man he considered his friend flying. He heard the second one go off when another of their group backed into it, and then he heard nothing else, static sparking in his ears. 

Shachath stood in the middle of the minefield. He knew that Jaha and the others could see her now, but if they said anything he couldn’t hear. They spent the night there, frozen and half buried by sand. She stood guard through the night, her figure emitting a coolness that eased away the desert heat. 

In the morning they followed Jaha out of the mines. She stayed in view until he stepped past the sign that announced the edge of the minefield. Her departure was accompanied by a crushing heat wave and Murphy almost called her back.   
+++++++++++++++++++++++

The boat was much too small for what they intended. Whether they knew it, Shachath couldn’t tell. She perched on the bow in anticipation, wings unfurled behind her. Murphy looked to her with fear and it occurred to her that he had not really seen her wings before. She tried to smile.

The creature stuck the boat methodically, seeking a breaking point. One by one she took the remaining men who had set out looking for something better. Murphy, her Murphy, fought to the last as always, but the creature did not stop until Jaha fed it. Sacrifice for the good of all, he had called it on the Ark. She wondered if he would say the same now. Probably. People don’t really change.

She pulled them towards the lighthouse and left. Neither would need her tonight. Under different circumstances, she might have stayed for Murphy, but by now she knew that hurt, abandoned, and alone for him did not mean dying. It meant challenge and freedom.  
++++++++++++++++++++++++

The food ran out after the second month, and the alcohol soon followed. The TV tortured him with knowledge of how the apocalypse and all its devastation came to be, and he broke it. Allie. Allie was the enemy and he couldn’t tell anyone and it didn’t matter anyways. 

Time passed and nothing changed. The bunker stayed sealed, the lights stayed on, and the food stayed gone. Murphy made it almost a week before he remembered the gun from the video, and his angel.

“Shachath,” he rasped, gun to his head. And she was there, beautiful and deadly as ever. He couldn’t count how many times he’d seen her before but this felt different. 

He struggled to process what was happening when she laid a hand over his and moved the gun away. “Now is not your time, little one,” she whispered sadly. 

Murphy let the gun fall and reached for her. “No, no, take me. I’m ready now.”

She kissed his forehead and faded from view. Murphy cried after her. “No, don’t leave me! Come back!” She did not. “You’re just like everyone else!” Murphy howled to no one.  
+++++++++++++++++++++++++

There he was again, pretending to be dead. Shachath wondered if this had more to do with the girl hiding in the bushes or her. The girl’s knife flashed, and Shachath decided that it was all to do with the fierce Grounder girl. 

The men they were ambushing did not fall for the trap, and when Murphy opened his eyes, they landed on Shachath, standing in plain view as always. He shook his head, though the message could have been for either her or the girl. Perhaps it was for both.

She kicked the chip that had fallen from his pocket into sight of one of the men, and Murphy stopped looking in her direction. She found herself uncaring whether there was work or not, and seated herself on the cart that was bound for Polis.   
+++++++++++++++++++++++++

She hadn’t left. Since arriving in Polis she’d stood just behind his left shoulder, Bellamy would have called it 8 o’clock. He could see her out of the corner of his eye. Titus and all his hits and threats seemed almost funny. For all the guardian angels there were, his just had to be the angel of death. She wouldn’t hurt him, not yet.

Titus asked about Clarke. Wanheda. Commander of Death. Murphy wondered if the grim reaper stood at her shoulder also. Murphy bit back a laugh. What would Titus say if he told the truth? Wanheda is here, tied up before you. There’s Death herself, can you see her? I really hope you can see her.


End file.
